My three biggest pet peeves with AAPG right now.

Comments

"Currently you have no penalties for movement"
So thought i'd say something.

Turning plus movement is twice as impactful.

I don't really mind the small 8 form sway. you should be pretty accurate slowly approaching a target. Enough games have this differently and i dont care how hard/soft sway is mostly.

Here's another idea... How about a non-tactical fast movement while ADS? Bumps up the sway considerably, but you can move faster while aiming down sights? Perfect for CQB, maybe not so good for long range. Another instance where the player can choose that trade-off.

I think it would make things overly complicated, we already have 2 paces while ADS. You'd need a new keybind. The only game I can think of, which does more is Tarkov. (Even in Arma 3 you only have 2 speeds while ADS.)

I also think that the current ADS movement speed is fast enough, I feel like having and even faster option wouldn't be good for gameplay... Everyone zipping around, while being accurate... But of course, this is not based on any hard facts.

Of course everything would depend on the actual realization, but I personally don't think we'd get this big of an overhaul to the movement system at this point. I mean it doesn't make too much sense to redesign the movement in a 4-year-old (4?) game.

Does "tactical" in ADS make you go slower? I guess it probably does, but I don't think I've ever used it. Regular ADS should be the tactical version and the faster version non-tactical. Again, the penalty for using it would be high sway, maybe even very high sway. Mainly use it in CQB or maybe if you can master the pattern then it's a different story.

You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!

I also wont wade into this one, one person here is very clearly missing the mark...even to the non forum-warriors.

If the Army wants eSports (see the R&R forum), they should obviously pair AA5 with their eSports initiative. SUre, AA5 will never be as big as DOTA, LoL, CSGO. But there's some sweet marketing potential to bring a team of real life Army gamers to these festivals/conventions and host small-scale events/tournaments that often occur with the less popular games. Like an undercard to a boxing main event, AAPG could start making the rounds at Dreamhack and whatnot with CSGO, LoL and DOTA2 headliners.

How sweet would it be to have 5 Army dudes in uniform walk up on the stage, greet the crowd and hang around after the match for some PR? You're welcome.

I think my biggest concern looking at this personally is that the AA franchise risks becoming a COD clone and losing its unique identity. I've been digging into the various other games as best I can to try and understand the playing field. I'm running out of hard drive space................

What could a new AA version bring to the market that is DIFFERENT but interesting and captivating for retention (and gives the Army value)? I don't feel we're getting that kind of feedback here from the comp oriented crowd, who instead seem to want CS/COD with an AA branding on it.

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I'm guessing a proper Army flavor but without such a slow tactical ARMA/SQUAD thing going on. So......AAPG but with more Army content and better mechanics? There's a lot about AAPG that's pretty close (considering we're playing on a 10 year old engine!) and some things that we all think need improving.

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This has been a test of the emergency flame-fest system. Please do not adjust your set.

Releasing a well-tested, fully developed game should be the requirement. None of this stalled, long drawn out open beta then incredibly slow incremental update nonsense. That killed the population of AA years ago. If the studio works slowly based on manpower, so be it. But then keep the game private until finished.

Changes to netcode, recoil, and that sort of thing should not happen after release. Just new maps, new training missions, unlockables (like AA2 maps, not like air strikes), etc.

I liked the mission/training progression of AA2 in principle, even though it didn't affect the way I played, or even where I played. After my first soldier, it was kind of a pain in the buttocks to go through the training.

1) boot camp. Learning basic movements of your pawn, get yelled at by some CGI drill instructor. Sit through some short (skippable after maybe 30 secs) modules about whatever the Army values. Take curriculum directly from the Army BMT classrooms. Progress through to weapons training/familiarization.

idk, personally I like games where you get new stuff as you go along. Obviously the main mechanics of the game need to be fleshed out early rather than frequently changing throughout development, but many great games have started with a more bare bones feature set and evolved from there. It gets you excited to look forward to the next patch where new features will be added.

You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!

I'm guessing a proper Army flavor but without such a slow tactical ARMA/SQUAD thing going on. So......AAPG but with more Army content and better mechanics? There's a lot about AAPG that's pretty close (considering we're playing on a 10 year old engine!) and some things that we all think need improving.

I'm guessing a proper Army flavor but without such a slow tactical ARMA/SQUAD thing going on. So......AAPG but with more Army content and better mechanics? There's a lot about AAPG that's pretty close (considering we're playing on a 10 year old engine!) and some things that we all think need improving.

I agree.

Overall, I think the mechanics are solid, but I still have to harp on the skill curve. Need to expand that.

Make movement more fluid/quick so that sprint is not so constantly needed (I think sprint around so often in this game). I'm not about making the game super fast, actually I do think it needs to be slower overall. However, fast movement gives the player more control, which is a good thing. The way you slow the game down is through action speeds, faster time to kill, things like that. Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to increasing TTK by a single shot on top of what we have in AAPG.

Figure out a risk reward system for most actions. Performing an action should typically give you a benefit, but also present some sort of drawback. The movement and lean example is one. I also think that action speeds should be slower and more deliberate. Reloading should take longer, switching weapons should take longer (pistol can be fast), switching back and forth to grenades should take longer. If I run out of ammo, my main course of action should be to get to cover and reload, if I can't do that then I should have to resort to my pistol or secondary. In AAPG it's rare where switching to your second weapon is needed. Throwing a grenade should have a penalty of taking an extra moment to switch back to your primary, especially if you intend grenades to be as lethal or close to it as they are now. These kinds of things are so important. If you have an action that benefits a player, there should be drawback even if it's not a massive one. Slowing down all of these actions would also slow down game play a bit. which is perfectly fine. Just because you move faster, doesn't mean that the game play needs to be at a blazing speed.

Same goes with the breathing. The figure 8 thing is actually pretty decent, I just wish they included that stop at the top and bottom and really increased the harshness of it. Being near a teammate can reduce it, being still, being prone, etc. Including the stop and bottom allows players to time their shots to the pattern. I'd also say to get rid of the hold breath function if you do this. If you want to include it, then have holding your breath outside of the natural cycles cause a penalty of some sort. Also, include a penalty depending on which scope you use. Higher powered scope = more penalty. Sniping shouldn't be as easy as it is in AAPG. Snipers should need to mount/go prone to make shooting easier. Again, slowing things down, making things more challenging. Mounting and dismounting should take time as well, look at how AA2 did it. Risk & Reward.

Actually another part to add on to this is something I've seen in sniper games. In AA2 we had CEM to tell you how your environment, health, etc. would affect your accuracy and ability to aim. Sniper games have a heart rate function that serves a similar purpose. Being shot at raises your heart rate. Sprinting raises your heart rate, heck even movement raises your heart rate. All sorts of things like that. The higher your heart rate, the more difficult it is to aim your weapon and things like that. Obviously being injured would raise your hurt rate as well. Would be a nice way to add that sort of immersive type of function to the game.

It's funny, if you look at AA2, the game was slow, but it worked well competitively because whether the Dev team intended it or not, most actions came with a trade-off. I remember so well that if you were on the opposite side of the door for an enemy and you go to a stale mate, there was such a meta there. Someone pulls out a grenade, suddenly you think they're going to toss one at you, you charge in, but they change back to their primary blow you away. On the flip side, they pull out a grenade and go to toss it at you, the slower speed of the actions allows you to charge in before they can switch back to the primary and kill them. Not having back up makes throwing that grenade so risky. All sorts of things like that occurred more frequently.

You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!

Oh, another interesting idea that I thought of would be a type of create your soldier type thing like Madden or any of those other games. You'd get out of bootcamp with the stock points for each category. Give players time to get a feel for the game. Then one you reach a certain rank (PFC or SPC) the player is given a chance to reallocate their points to different ability categories to make their soldier fit their play style. Once you set your points you can't edit them again until you get promoted to the next level.

Some ideas for categories:
Marksmanship - The ability to hold your rifle steady (sway)
Weapon Control - ability to control recoil
Stealth - How loud your footsteps are
Athleticism - How fast you move, vault, and get fatigued. Maybe how far you can throw grenades.
Bravery - How much you are affected by being shot at and being injured
Leadership - Extends the range of a player's influence over his teammates (doesn't need to be as close) and the extent of that influence (reducing penalties).

If players wish for one category to be increased, they have to drop another one. There could also be a variable to set all players to the standard numbers for competition if needed.

You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!

Oh, another interesting idea that I thought of would be a type of create your soldier type thing like Madden or any of those other games. You'd get out of bootcamp with the stock points for each category. Give players time to get a feel for the game. Then one you reach a certain rank (PFC or SPC) the player is given a chance to reallocate their points to different ability categories to make their soldier fit their play style. Once you set your points you can't edit them again until you get promoted to the next level.

Some ideas for categories:
Marksmanship - The ability to hold your rifle steady (sway)
Weapon Control - ability to control recoil
Stealth - How loud your footsteps are
Athleticism - How fast you move, vault, and get fatigued. Maybe how far you can throw grenades.
Bravery - How much you are affected by being shot at and being injured
Leadership - Extends the range of a player's influence over his teammates (doesn't need to be as close) and the extent of that influence (reducing penalties).

If players wish for one category to be increased, they have to drop another one. There could also be a variable to set all players to the standard numbers for competition if needed.

So in this situation, a player would have the same number of points to use regardless of rank? That's the only way I could see this work.

If you earn more points as you rank up, I wouldn't like it. I'm not sure I like it as I understand it, but it's interesting. It's a level playing field in the sense that everyone has the same number of points to work with, but some players will be stronger in certain areas than others depending on point allocation.